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| Afghanistan |
| Female MPs Join 82nd To Thwart Would-Be Weapons Smugglers |
| 2002-09-16 |
| Another one courtesy of Steve, from the September 23rd Army Times... The 82nd Airborne Division has started taking female MPs on combat missions to counter the threat of terrorists using Afghan women to smuggle weapons. U.S. combat troops here have been under strict orders to avoid touching, searching or — in some cases — even looking at Afghan women. The restrictions were ordered out of respect for the country’s customs. Not to mention the fact that the fifth columnists wanted to keep the breeding stock as tools against the Merkins... Most Afghan women still dress in traditional, fully covering, burqas to conceal their identity and sexuality from other men. But some have been found to use the loose-fitting garb to hide rocket launchers and assault rifles. Wotta surprise. During Operation Mountain Sweep, a seven-day operation into southeastern Afghanistan in late August, paratroopers from the 82nd’s 1st Battalion, 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment, with the help of friendly Afghan forces, caught seven Afghan women hiding rocket-propelled grenade launchers under their burqas. U.S. forces confiscated the weapons but let the women go because they are viewed as nothing more than the tools of male enemy forces. That's because we're a kind hearted bunch, unlike the breeders' menfolk... When leaders of the 82nd launched Operation Champion Strike into the Bermel Valley Sept. 7, they brought Sgt. Nicola Hall of the 21st Military Police Company to deal with the women. Whoops. Put a stop to that nonsense, didn't it? She was one of two women on the mission. The other was Spc. Kristina Franc, also of the 21 MP Company. Hall, 22, quickly discovered during a building-to-building search of Bermel Bazaar, a compound suspected to be a terrorist recruitment site, that at least one woman was hiding something. "I knew she had something because she was [pushing] me off," Hall said. Hall said she found an AK47 tied to the inside of one of the woman’s legs and "a 30-round magazine, cupped underneath her breast." That's some pretty deadly marital aids... "I asked her why she had it and she said it was her son’s," Hall said. "He's an avid elk hunter..." Military commanders said that to avoid unnecessary searches, the MPs, working with civil-military operations soldiers and Afghan Militia Forces, first scan the women with a hand-held metal detector. "If nothing hits, they are left alone. If it does, the female MP does the search," said Lt. Col. Martin Schweitzer, commander of 3rd Battalion. "We are not going to violate their cultural norms." "But we do laugh when one of them shoots herself in the udder, or when they explode. We just can't help it." Maj. Gen. John Vines, commander of the 82nd, said it’s unlikely that Afghan women are taking up the terrorist cause, but U.S. troops still have to be prepared to counter that threat. "The thing we do know about terrorists is that they are adaptive, and what their tactics may have been last month certainly could be changed this month," Vines said in a recent interview. "I have seen nothing to indicate that is a tactic they have employed in the past, [but] we have to be prepared to adapt to that." Didn't take a rocket scientist to think it up, either... A staff sergeant serving in the 20th Special Forces Group, who identified himself as Christian, said local women have no control over decisions that affect them. If a man tells them to smuggle weapons, it’s done. Period. Women here are used as cattle, so they are not respected. They do what they are told." Islamists call this their version of women's rights... Hall said it’s obvious to her that most local women here are terrified when they see male American soldiers descend on their world. She said she always makes sure to remove her helmet so they can see she is one of them. "As soon as they see me they pretty much calm down," Hall said. "I love this. It’s great 
It means a lot to play a little part instead of just keeping to Kandahar." Deep down, though, just once, she wants to be able to say: "Drop the rod, Mahmoud, or I flash my boobs!" You know she wants to do it, just to see him pee himself. |
| Posted by:Fred Pruitt |
| #1 I know I'd be very tempted! |
| Posted by: Kathy K 2002-09-16 16:31:25 |